In the Windows operating system, a user account that is a member of the administrators group will not automatically have unrestricted full access to the operating system, thanks to the User Account Control system that has been implemented since Windows Vista. The purpose of the UAC restriction is to prevent malicious software from instantly making changes to any parts of the Windows operating system when it is launched. The User Account Control warning window will help to create an awareness to the user that a program from an unknown publisher wants to make changes to your computer.

As an example, the HOSTS file in Windows is used to map a hostname to an IP address and can be opened and viewed using a text editor such as Notepad. However, in order to save the changes made on the HOSTS file, Notepad must run as administrator or else you’ll get the error window saying “Access is denied.”

An older program that was compiled during the Windows XP era will also face problems if it requires changes in restricted areas because it doesn’t create a UAC prompt to elevate privileges when run. To solve this problem, you can manually run the program as administrator and here we have 10 different ways to do it.
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When it comes to ports that connect between devices and computers, USB is one of the best inventions that renders other communication ports such as serial and parallel port useless. If you’ve been using computers since Windows 95, it is common to find a keyboard and mouse with a PS/2 port, an external modem with serial port and a printer that uses parallel port. Installing these devices on a computer is also troublesome as it requires Windows to restart to detect the connected devices.

Today, you can find most devices using a USB port to connect to the computer because of many advantages it provides such as supplying power, speed, the ability to detect the device instantly without the need to restart Windows, etc. One good example is a USB flash drive that can be instantly used without plugging in a separate power source and the latest USB3.0 provides a very fast file transfer speed. Most importantly, Windows automatically detects and installs the USB flash drive.

As useful and convenient as it is, USB ports also pose huge security risks by allowing anyone to easily steal data from a private computer by plugging in a USB flash drive and copying data. Fortunately, it is possible to disable USB storage, USB printers, USB Audio and even USB scanners by modifying a registry value in Windows. Here are the steps:
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Solid State Drives (SATA and NVMe) are fast becoming the norm for many users to place their Windows install onto. Because prices for larger capacity drives are still quite expensive, many users have smaller capacity drives. If you have a smaller SSD or your Windows boot partition isn’t that large, you need to watch every Gigabyte that goes onto it or space can fill up pretty quickly.

Using tools like TreeSize or SpaceSniffer to find what is taking up excess space on your drive might show that the C:\Windsows\Installer folder is one of them. If you check the folder, you will most likely find a lot of MSI and MSP files in there possibly consuming Gigabytes of drive space. Do note that the Windows Installer folder has a hidden and system attribute. To see the folder, you will need to select “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files” from the Folder Options in Control Panel.

Viewing the Property details of MSI and MSP files in the Installer folder could show that they are connected to software currently installed. Others might be from software you have uninstalled or old versions that have since been replaced. Those files should be no longer needed and can be deleted. The problem is identifying them because just deleting any MSI or MSP file is a bad idea as it could be required for updating, patching, or uninstalling existing applications.
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One of the many positive enhancements to come out of Windows 7 and highly requested for a return in Windows 10’s Start Menu is the Jump List feature. Jump Lists have proved to be very popular because they are very useful and allow convenient access to recently or frequently used files or website links in the Start Menu and on the Taskbar. Many applications these days come with their own custom Jump List and include custom tasks related to the program as well a the recently opened, recently closed, commonly used items and etc.

One issue with a Jump List is it will show recent activity and history for each program that has a pinned Taskbar icon or Start Menu entry. If you don’t want a specific list to show or want to clear one or more lists, it isn’t immediately obvious how to do it. To disable specific Jump Lists, clear one, some or all Jump Lists, create your own Jump Lists or turn the option off altogether, we have a number of solutions for you to look at.
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Because I constantly need to test software on different system type such as 32-bit and 64-bit, I must have a backup image of both environments so that I can always revert back to the original state. Testing or benchmarking software on a fresh Windows installation is most important as it produces more accurate results compared to a system that has tons of drivers and third party software installed. I was just creating a new image for Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (x64) with SP1 fully up to date but I encountered a problem in creating a system image using the built-in tool in Windows 7. The backup process fails and prompts the longest error message that I’ve seen in Windows.

The backup failed. There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location. Make sure that, for all volumes to be backup up, the minimum required disk space for a shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the backup storage destination and volumes included in the backup. Minimum requirement: For volumes less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabytes of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space. Recommended: At least 1 gigabyte of free disk space on each volume if volume size is more than 1 gigabyte. (0x80780119)

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WiFi technology is everywhere these days and it seems almost every electronic device around has a wireless network connection of some sort. Laptops, tablets, smartphones, digital cameras, printers, gaming consoles, smart home devices, and many other things can connect to each other or the internet through a WiFi connection. A wireless network setup also presents its own set of problems when it comes to your own home network and the devices attached to it.

Setting up your own WiFi network with adequate protection like WPA2 and a strong password is vital. But that still doesn’t mean other people aren’t using your network without your knowledge. It’s possible friends, neighbors, or family members have shared the WiFi credentials with others and people you don’t know could have access to your network and your shared files. While many routers have additional security measures such as MAC address filtering, these might not be configured or someone has circumvented them.

A lot of modern routers will give you a list of the wired and wireless devices making a connection to the network, but some do not and some people wouldn’t actually know how to find that information. Another simple way is using a tool to get the list of connected devices, here’s 7 for you to try out.
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One of the first thing that I normally do after installing Windows is to disable the automatic Windows Update. Although automatic update is a very convenient way to keep Windows up to date, but I personally do not like Windows or any third party software to automatically do things in background without my knowledge, unless I schedule it to do that. All I need to do is manually check for updates using Windows Update in Control Panel every Patch Tuesday (second Tuesday of each month) as that is when Microsoft releases security patches.

The recent Patch Tuesday released 2 updates and 1 security update for Microsoft .NET Framework 4 with a couple of other updates for Windows. All updates installed without problems except the 3 updates for .NET Framework 4, failing with the error code 66A (Windows Update encountered an unknown error). I tried to install one by one but still no luck.

At first I wanted to reset the Windows Update components using the official Microsoft Fix it 50202 tool but after thinking for a while, this error code 66A should have nothing to do with a broken Windows Update since other updates were able to install except for .NET Framework 4.
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I got to know about spinning down drives after stopping in Vista & Windows 7 while I was reviewing the changelog for USB Safely Remove 4.4. Basically what USB Safely Remove explained in their blog about this is when you eject a device, for instance a USB flash drive in Windows XP, the LED will be switched off. However in Windows Vista and Windows 7, the LED light is still turned on even after ejecting them from Safely Remove Hardware. It won’t be a problem if it is a USB flash drive because it doesn’t have any moving parts but it could be worrying when it comes to an external mechanical hard drive that requires the heads to park to avoid damaging the hard drive which will lead to data losses.

Starting from USB Safely Remove 4.4, it comes with a feature to power off device after device stopping by just enabling it in the Options. For people that managed to grab a free license of the USB Safely Remove 4.7 which I’ve posted it yesterday, I bet you would have enabled this option during the first run of the software for safety precaution. However for people that missed the giveaway, or would want to use this option WITHOUT installing USB Safely Remove software, here is how you can manually enable this safety feature.
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There are a lot of third party remote control pieces software around such as the popular freeware tools VNC, and TeamViewer, but there are times when the built-in Remote Desktop Connection feature in Windows 7 is the most useful since it’s already present in Windows and you don’t need to install any third party software. All you need to do is to enable it because the Remote Desktop function is disabled by default. You can enable Remote Desktop and allow connection from other computers by going to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> click on the Remote tab.

From there, you can either select “Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop” which is less secure or “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication”. If you are setting up a connection to a different Windows version such as XP or Vista from your Windows 7 machine , then you need to choose the less secure option.

Tip: Pressing the WIN Key+ Pause/Break keys simultaneously brings up the System window.

If you only see the Remote Assistance box in the Remote tab but not Remote Desktop, that is because there are some restrictions that Microsoft has implemented in your version of Windows. Only Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise can accept connections from Remote Desktop but NOT for Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic and Home Premium. You can however, use Remote Desktop to initiate a connection from any edition of Windows 7.

Many branded laptops and computers come with Windows 7 Home Premium or possibly Home Basic pre-installed, but not to worry because there is a hack patch that can enable the Remote Desktop Connection in Windows 7 Home Premium with a single click.
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Windows XP by default allows anyone in the same local area network to access its shared folders without the need to provide a user name and password. This is because the XP Simple File Sharing mode is enabled by default and can be disabled from Control Panel > Folder Options. As for Windows 7, the default security settings for folder sharing have been strengthened and you cannot access anyone’s shared folder on the same network without providing the correct login information. An attempt to connect to another computer will first prompt a Windows Security dialog box asking you to enter network password.

This is an improved security feature because previously anyone can access an unprotected shared folder by simply using SoftPerfect Network Scanner to scan for shared folders on the whole subnet. However, if you’re the only user on the network or your computers only connect to your personal private network, the authentication to access shared folders is quite unnecessary.

Here is how to share folders and access the shared folders in Windows 7.
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When I was in my teens and started to learn about fixing computers, one of the first thing I remembered learning was the proper order to install drivers. Installing Windows now is much more simplified and easy compared to Windows 95/98 because we don’t need to use a DOS bootup floppy disk, and the vast support of devices on Windows 7. Windows 98 didn’t support a lot of drivers and we need to spend quite a lot of time searching and downloading the drivers for chipset, display, sound, modem and printer on the internet using the slow 56Kbps dial up internet connection.

A very old friend of mine just called me yesterday asking me what and how to install chipset driver. Many people call it a chipset driver but in fact it is not a driver nor does it include drivers. It contains information text files (INFs) that provides the operating system with information about a piece of hardware on the system. This allows the operating system to show the correct name for that piece of hardware in Device Manager.

As far as I can remember, the first driver that I should always install is the chipset drivers once Windows installation has been completed, followed by the rest of the drivers. If you install the Intel Chipset Software much later, you will notice that it will not install all INFs.
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To increase the efficiency of recovering your system, some of you may think of cloning your current system and store it in a portable drive by using the program such as Ghost. If your system crashed, you can easily plug in the portable drive, and recover your system to the state whereby you do not need to spend so much time on installing necessary software or security updates for each of the application. Apparently, this will save you a lot of time.

By preparing a clean operating system image, after you install the necessary software and tools, you will need to perform a system preparation by using a tool called Sysprep. (For Windows Embedded operating system, you will need to use a tool called FBreseal to prepare the system, it is hard to search for on the Internet, and you may download the FBreseal tool from here if you are using Windows Embedded operating system). This step is very important, especially if you would like to clone the same operating system image on multiple machines. If you do not perform system preparation, all the machine that using the same image, will have the same Security Identifier (SID) applied on it. Imagine if everyone in the same town is having the same identity card number, this is ridiculous, and no one will be able to proof themselves. Furthermore, those machines that with the same SID will not be able to join to the domain. From Microsoft system point of view, SID should be unique for every computer device that connected to the Active Directory.
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Windows Task Manager is a very useful utility built into the Windows operating system. It can be launched by a few different methods such as selecting “Start Task Manager” from the taskbar context menu, pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc, running taskmgr.exe from the Start menu, and etc.

For computer beginners, Task Manager is mostly used to forcefully end a process that is not responding or hung. For advanced users, it can be used to look for suspicious running processes. The Task Manager has limited functionality in some areas by default. For instance, you cannot determine the program path for a running process because it only shows the image name and you’ll have to search the hard drive for the filename.

It is sometimes important to know the exact path to a running process because an executable can trick a user into thinking that it is a legitimate process by impersonating the filename, but located at a different path. Thankfully, Task Manager can do this with a few minor adjustments. Also, some third party task management software can also show the process path by default. Here we show you some options.
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The dreaded blue screen of death (BSoD) has been around since Windows 95. It is scary in a way that this blue screen can happen anytime without the user expecting it and there is no way to recover from this blue screen other than restarting the computer. Obviously the biggest problem is actually when you are working on something important and haven’t got a chance to save it. An unexpected blue screen will just cause you to lose all or some parts of your work depending on how often it is being saved. Other than that, the blue screen on an older Windows does look a bit scary with all the text and technical information on screen. Fortunately the blue screen on Windows 8.1 doesn’t look so frightening.

Anything can cause a blue screen in Windows. It can be from an unstable driver for a hardware device, 3rd party software such as an antivirus/firewall, or even a rootkit based malware. It can also be caused by an attacker exploiting or in another word “nuking” an unpatched Windows. Hardware such as memory, CPU and motherboards that are failing can also randomly cause blue screen.

If the blue screen is caused by software, an inexperienced computer technician will have to spend more time to determine the culprit by going through the process of elimination of disabling all 3rd party programs that startup automatically, enable them one at a time and test until they experience the blue screen. However with the right tools in hand, it can quickly reveal which software is possibly causing the blue screen so you can work towards fixing the problem. Here we have 3 free software that can do that.
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Whenever a computer develops an issue or becomes unstable, the first thing an experienced user will want to do is start troubleshooting. There are many tools around that can help fix a number of problems, but the first approach should be to look at the logs Windows creates to check for possible warnings or errors. The Windows Reliability Monitor is one Windows function that gives relatively easy to read details, but that gets its data from somewhere with even more information, and that is the Windows Event viewer.

Event Viewer is the user interface to display the Windows Event Logs, and with it a vast array of information is available to tell you what Windows components and third party software has been doing. If there’s something wrong the logs will often tell you by showing a warning or error for the entry, from there you can troubleshoot deeper and narrow down possible causes to the problem.

Even though the logs in Event Viewer are created automatically by Windows or installed applications, the end user can also add their own entries to create a log of anything they wish, a common use would be for monitoring when an application is opened or closed. Adding a log entry is done using a built in windows command called EventCreate, so you can create an event from Command Prompt or even from your own scripts or programs.

The Eventcreate command works on Windows XP up to and including Windows 10, but note that it requires administrator privileges to work. Open a Command Prompt by typing cmd into Windows Start search and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to launch in admin mode.
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